an army from within.

Those next eight days Luther and I spent as willing and, on the whole,
decently treated captives within the lines of the German Army of the
North, talking freely with cultivated officers and grimy men of the
ranks, and in this way learning much of the German war machine, the
opinions of the officers and the men at their command. It would be
interesting to tell how in Brussels we dodged from War Office to cafe,
from cafe to consulate, from consulate back to War Office, and later
were worried and watched and suspected; how we were shipped
back across the German border on a combination Red Cross and
ammunition train; how we were locked for much of the night in a
half-mile tunnel of the northern Vosges Mountains, and there, in the
groping darkness of our box-car prison, shared the soldier's biscuit
and his bottle, so coming to know the Kaiser's private as a
companion and not as the barbarian his enemies paint him.

The day after we got inside the German lines we went before Major
Heinrich Bayer, at that time military commandant in Brussels in the
absence of General von der Goltz. Jostling through the street and
jamming the courtyard of the War Office was a crowd of a thousand
persons--mothers, children, whole families begging for relief or
permission to leave the city limits; German subjects trying to get
passes, officials and employees of the civil administration taking
orders from the military authorities. A relay of aides, orderlies, and
secretaries led us from courtyard to corridor and from corridor to staff
headquarters and into the Holy of Holies--the office of the
commandant.

Grim, stern,--but courteous throughout the interview,--the major
paced the floor beside his desk. He seemed anxious enough to be rid
of the "crazy Americans" who had wandered through the Belgian and
German lines, not altogether satisfied with their integrity, yet not
wishing to take a hostile attitude. I asked him when he thought the
war would be over. At the moment the German major, Vice-Consul
Van Hee, and I were the only persons in the room.

"I do not know," he said, as if thinking aloud; "I really do not know.
America is the only country that has not fired on us yet, but all the rest
--" Then he added thoughtfully, "Perhaps it is better that you go. But
you cannot return to Ghent or Antwerp; you must go back to
Germany." He stopped as if he had gone too far, and then sharply
commanded the orderly to remove